July 2,  2021

RIVERS 

 

Stop - whenever you see a river.
 
Just close your eyes –
and hear its swagger, 
it's swirls and its roll.
 
Just open up your eyes
and see its flow.
 
America has them – rivers.
 
The mighty Mississippi -
the deep Hudson –
the searching Shenandoah,
the St. Lawrence and the Rio Grande,
the Colorado and the Columbia.
 
Go to Pittsburgh and see the Alleghany
and the Monongahela flowing till they 
become the Ohio with its coal boats.
 
Rivers!
 
And this is just one country with all its rivers
and they are just one of the Creator's great
imaginations – rivers -  Holy Water – Sacred flow.

 
There's more! Keep moving! Keep living.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

July  2,  2021 

Thought for the Day

“Stories move in circles. They don’t move in straight lines.  So it helps if you listen in circles. There are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and as hard as finding your way home. And part of the finding is the getting lost. And when you are lost, you start to look around and to listen.” 

Corey Fischer. Albert Greenberg, 

and Naomi Newman of 

A Traveling Jewish Theater, 

Coming from a Great Distance

 July  1,  2021

PERHAPS,  PERHAPS,  PERHAPS

Life - perhaps 56 % of it is, "Perhaps!"
Or "Maybe".
Or "You never know."
Or "I'll let you know."
Or "I need some time to think about this."
Life? Is it a dance?
Life? Or am I in a trance?

Sometimes .... Most of the time ....
Perhaps .... Perhaps .... Perhaps....

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021

July  1,  2021

 

Thought for the Day

 

“We are what we remember of ourselves.”

 

Michael Anderson,

 

 

Michael Anderson, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Cambridge who studies memory.  How you will remember your life as an 80-year-old will depend on the ways you hold on to, or let go of, memories.  Your brain is always in the process of forgetting,  but Anderson believes you can forget with more intentionality – what he calls motivated forgetting – and that you can get better at it with practice.  ‘You sculpt your memories,’ he says.” page 17 in an article by Malia Wollan, “How to Forget Something,” in the New York Times Magazine, for May 9, 2021

June 30, 2021

 

MOVING  BEYOND  SCROUNGE

 

 

If our life gets into the fast lane and

and if it stays there – we might find

ourselves scrounging for time, for sleep,

for eating, for conversations with each

other – and for some – time for God.

 

A flat tire, a traffic jam, someone

avoiding us – because we are by

passing them over and over again

can wake us up. We have to read to

the signs of the time: STOP, YIELD ....

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021

June  30,  2021

 

Thought for the Day

 

“Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.”

   

                                                                                              Friedrich Nietzsche

June 29, 2021

 COMING  HOME

Coming up the street,
coming home,
after a long day,
after a wrong day,
not every day –
but today – yes ....
"No, everything
went wrong, nothing
went right." I was cut
by a nasty comment,
not recognized,
not listened to,
not acknowledged,
just ignored once more,
once again. ,

needing a hug, a hello,
a "Welcome home!"
[Silence!]
"Thank you!"
“Now, just sit down for 15 minutes.”
“Hi Dad!”
“I had a bad day at school today.”
“Come here and tell me about it.”
[Voice from the kitchen:] 
“Supper will be ready in 20 minutes.”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021